Letters to the editor — May 8, 2019

Dick Pilling, former chair of the Clallam County Republican Party, is surprisingly correct in stating “collusion is not a crime” (“Not conspiracy but ‘confused collusion’?” Sequim Gazette, May 1, page A-12).

Did Benedict Arnold betray George Washington by “colluding” with the British during the Revolutionary War yet not conspire with them? A traitor, he spent no jail time, lived a lavish lifestyle and retired to London.

The emoluments clause of the Constitution and the Logan Act have become platitudes. Had they been suborned by the previous administration they would have been heralded.

With Republican aplomb, Pilling, like Caesar, attacks the messenger and denigrates those of differing political persuasion.

Impeachment is moot under an intransigent Senate as well as time constraints before the next election.

However, should the incumbent president be re-elected …

Roger B. Huntman

Sequim

‘Unfit for office’

Any intelligent person who has witnessed the recent happenings in Washington, D.C., since the redacted Mueller Report was issued should be seriously concerned about what might be next.

President Trump is openly violating several U.S. laws and advocating his minions to do the same, promising pardons if there is a legal problem. (For example, there is a law that states the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman “shall” be provided the income tax returns of any American citizen, when requested. This is Section 6103(f)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code. Also, due process is to be provided to U.S. asylum seekers required by the Refugee Act of 1980, which Trump, et al, has violated repeatedly. And Trump and his minions are stonewalling all House subpoenas, which risks a contempt of congress citation and removal from office.)

If Trump is immune to U.S. laws, then our Constitution and Democracy could fail as soon as 2021 if he is re-elected.

If that happens, most citizen rights (voting, free speech, protections by laws and courts, religion, sanctuary of home, owning guns?, et al) now taken for granted could be decided by Trump. U.S. national security, which has been successfully dependent on diplomacy, NATO and other treaties since World War II, would also be at risk.

Trump, while creating continual chaos and hysteria on the Mexican border and giving the ultra-rich a trillion-dollar tax cut, has avoided a badly needed, costly U.S. infrastructure upgrade project, and seems dedicated to erase health care for millions of Americans.

To be clear, Trump (in his ignorance) has not brought back millions of promised jobs nor training needed for jobs to implement new technologies. In Trump’s “promises made, promises kept” he has kept very few — even when he had complete control of the Congress and the executive branch. He is truly unfit for his office!